In Tuesday's 'primary', Arizona's independent voters don't get much of a say

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Arizona holds a presidential preference election to choose how its delegates will be awarded. That means independents don't get to vote - in a state where they are a third of the electorate.

In this file photo, voters deliver their ballot to a polling station in Tempe, Ariz., on Nov. 3, 2020. In the 2024 presidential preference election in Arizona, independent voters are not permitted to vote.

But the simpler reason, and one election officials in Arizona go to great lengths to explain to voters every four years, is that unlike other primaries, independents aren't invited.Independent voters pay for that activity, they pay for that election, as taxpayers, and I really wasn't super keen on the notion that the parties could exclude those voters.

But that ballot measure left intact the state's presidential preference election, created a few years prior. What irked Fontes about the PPE was the administration of it – it may be a vote by and for political parties, but it's run by counties, and paid for by taxpayers regardless of their party affiliation.

But Democrats at a state committee meeting rejected the idea. For as much as the state boasts about having an independent streak, when it comes to nominating a presidential candidate, many still feel it's a process best left to party members only."I think that makes sense, that if you want to have a voice in who the Republican presidential nominee is, and who the Democratic presidential nominee is, then you should register as part of that political party," Herrera said.

"I just feel that it is our duty to vote, we're lucky to be able to, and it was frustrating to me that I couldn't, you know, cast a ballot," she said.There's a ballot initiative gathering signatures that would require the Republican and Democratic parties to either pay for future PPEs, or let independents participate.

 

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